Iloilo City starts giving booster shots to frontliners

Iloilo City has started administering booster shots for fully vaccinated medical frontliners on Thursday, Nov 18, 2021 after the health department gave the green light on Wednesday.

Based on data from the Iloilo City government, 109 eligible medical frontliners received booster doses as of Thursday.

The 109 medical frontliners were inoculated in the mega vaccination sites in the city – 28 at the University of San Agustin (USA); 26 at the Megaworld Transport Hub; 30 at Robinson’s Jaro; 18 at Ateneo de Iloilo; and 7 at SM City Iloilo.

The number, however, excluded frontliners who were inoculated with booster shots at the city hospitals.

The Department of Health (DOH) announced Wednesday the start of giving booster COVID-19 shots for fully vaccinated health care workers.

Healthcare workers who have completed their primary series, or six months after getting the second dose, can be inoculated with vaccine brands approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

“Fully vaccinated health-care workers will start receiving a booster shot of the COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday and they will be followed soon by the elderly and people with comorbidities,” the DOH Region 6 said in an advisory.

DOH has approved Covid-19 vaccines of Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech and Sinovac as booster doses under the “heterologous vaccine strategy”. Hence, the health department has allowed additional vaccine shots from any of the approved brands on fully inoculated individuals regardless of their primary vaccine shots.

The three vaccine brands were approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and emergency use authorization (EUA) were issued for their use. (ERS)